Now You Know
by slightlysmall
Summary: It had been more than seven years since she used magic, and just once, while her husband is away at work, Eileen Prince Snape pulls her wand out from her linen closet. The consequences when her husband catches her, however, remind her why she had put her magic away for good. Rated M for language and domestic violence.


**A/N: I'm not JK Rowling. I don't own her characters and don't make any money from them. Loosely based off of Taylor Swift's song "Tell Me Why." I'm also not Taylor Swift. Written for the SongFic Boot Camp Challenge, with the prompt "heartbroken."**

One day, when her husband was at work, Eileen walked over to the linen closet and dug to the back of it until she found the small slim case where she hid her wand. The box was dusty from years of being out of sight, and she blew the dust away before opening it, and her eyes teared up at the sight. "Hazel, 10 ¾ inches, unicorn hair, unyielding," she said, remembering Ollivander as she took it out.

With a flick of her wrist, the linen closet was re-organizing itself and Eileen felt a smile overtake her face for one of the first times since her son was born nearly seven years ago. It was a happy surprise that her wand responded to her as if it had been hours and not years since she'd used it. Her always-cluttered house began to clear, and Severus followed her around, seemingly fascinated as the objects moved through the air on their own.

"Mum, what are you doing?"

Her smile spread over her whole face. "It's called magic, Sev. Someday you'll be able to as well."

"I like it. Why don't you do magic more often?"

"Daddy doesn't really like magic."

Severus looked at his feet. "Daddy doesn't like much of anything."

Eileen picked him up and tried changing the subject. "Well how about we go see what we can pick up in the living room?" He rested his head against her shoulder and nodded.

As she waved the objects about, humming an old song her mum used to sing, Eileen thought she heard a click at the front door. But that couldn't be right; Tobias couldn't be home yet. It was only just past lunch! A look out the window told her she was mistaken. The sun had already begun to sink over the horizon. Her husand walked into the house and Eileen quickly went to hide her wand as she turned to face him, but it was too late.

He didn't move any closer to them, but shouted from the entryway. "What's that you're holding?"

She spoke to the floor, unable to meet his eyes even from across the house. "This- it's my wand, Tobias. All witches and wizards have one. I've told you this."

He dropped his coat and things in the entryway and walked directly towards her, not intimidating at all except that she knew what was about to happen. Severus was clinging to her leg, and she looked down to see him staring up at her, tears welling in his eyes. Tobias reached her before she had a chance to look up again, and he knocked the wand out of her hand, sending it across the floor. "I thought I made it clear when we got married, Eileen. There would be no foolish wand waving in my house. So what the hell were you doing, with a wand in your hand?"

"It's just that I- I didn't think you'd be- it had been so long- I was just curious if I could even-" Eileen's words tumbled out of her mouth, jumbled together, unsure of what exactly to say.

"Move aside, Severus," Tobias said, and when the boy clung tighter to his mother's leg, he pried him away himself, and shoved him out of the way.

Eileen could hear her son whimpering in the corner and turned to look at him. A strong hand grabbed her jaw and turned her around. "Ignore him. This is about you and your fucking magic. I told you there would be no magic in our household." Her neck whipped around with the force of the blow he delivered and she couldn't hide the small cry that emerged from her throat at the pain. She tasted blood, felt the cut on her upper lip.

She whispered, afraid to look up at the sallow face of her husband. "All I used it for was to clean our house. That's it."

"I don't give a shit what you used it for! I go to work every fucking day and work with my own two hands to bring home money for this family. All I expect from you is that you get off your lazy ass and clean the house every now and then. Cleaning house with the flick of an old stick is the laziest fucking thing I've ever heard of." With that, he began to beat her until she lost count of the blows and injuries, becoming a ragdoll against his fists. She knew he would finish when he felt like it, regardless of any plea, so she saved her energy.

He finally stormed out of the room, taking a glass bottle with him, and she lay on the floor, defeated. Severus crouched up from his corner, glanced around, then ran over to her side. "Mum? Are you okay, Mum?"

"I'm fine, Severus. I'm just resting. Please go to your room and play now. I'll join you in a little while." She didn't know why she lied; he was old enough to know what was going on. But how could she explain what he just witnessed? Does she tell him it's okay, that dad's just had a hard time at work, or that she deserves it since he explicitly told her not to use magic again? She was afraid she would soon have to explain to a very angry teenager why she married his father in the first place.

But it was more complicated than her son could understand, and that was proven as she lay in bed later that night. Her husband, not quite drunk, lay beside her, held her hand. "I'm so sorry, Eileen," he said, kissing her forehead. "It's just that work was so stressful. I shouldn't have taken it out on you. You shouldn't have been doing magic, but I overreacted."

He turned to face her, wrapped an arm around her waist. Her bruises were tender, but she didn't flinch under his embrace. He kissed her fresh wounds, pulled her into a place where it was impossible to forget why she married this man, why she had been willing to be disinherited to marry this Muggle. She was enthralled by him even now, but only in the cover of night, in a deep blackness that his hair blended into and she could only just make out the outline of his face. "I love you," she said, whispering so close to his cheek that her lips brushed his skin. He pulled her into his arms and said he loved her too.

Eileen woke up with the dawn like she always did, her husband still snoring beside her. She pulled on a nightgown and went to the bathroom to assess the damage from the night before. It wasn't as bad as it had been, only a few cuts and bruises on her face. She tried her best to cover them with Muggle makeup, wished, not for the first time, that she could just grab her wand and heal herself, but after the trouble she had gotten into the day before, she was sure her wand would be staying in the linen closet for a very long time.

She set about making breakfast, Severus under her feet in no time. "Mum, are you okay?"

"Yes, dear, I'm fine. Would you like to help scramble the eggs?"

"Okay." He grabbed a stool to reach the stove better, and helped her with the eggs. By the time Tobias got out of bed, breakfast was on the table, Severus sitting politely in his chair, Eileen standing nearby with a newspaper for him to read. He took it and unceremoniously sat down, and she joined him at the table.

"What's the damn sports section doing in here, woman? You know I don't want to look at that rubbish." He threw the whole paper on the ground and grabbed hold of the collar of her dress. "Can't you do _anything _right?" He threw her against the counter, and her head knocked against a glass jar, shattering it. "Worthless piece of shit."

Even as she bled, she picked herself up to begin picking up the pieces. "Stay in your chair, Severus," she said, then lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. "I thought you said you loved me."

"Well who can love a woman who can't do anything right? God, Eileen." He grabbed her arm, and as she involuntarily flexed, she felt the glass in her hand cutting through her skin. She grit her teeth as he shoved her down again. "You better have this placed cleaned up when I get home from work. And without any of that fucking magic." With that, he grabbed his coat and walked out the door.

It was only once he left that she had the courage to cry, but hid herself in the bathroom so her son couldn't see her. She began to assess the damage and determined that there was nothing that wouldn't heal with time. Except, she decided, her heart. But that had been broken since a week or two into her marriage; she wouldn't have been certain it was even there anymore, except the love she still felt for Severus.

She only barely made it through the day with her curious and worried son, trying to deflect his questions, keep him occupied, try not to acknowledge that he spent most of his time staring at the cut on her upper lip.

Tobias didn't come home for dinner. It was only about an hour after Severus had gone to sleep that he finally walked through the front door holding a handgun. "Witches are bulletproof, right?" he said, a drunken slur.

"No, Tobias, no- I'm not- only human-" She wanted to scream the words at him, but they came out barely a whisper. He aimed for her heart, but with his shaking hands, he hit her stomach.

As she fell to the floor, bleeding, she looked up at the man she had traded everything for. "I said I wasn't bulletproof. Now you know."


End file.
